Who Got Rich This Week: An Organic Grocer, An Injection Molder And More

Each week at Forbes we scan our database of corporate insiders to see who got richer from the action in the stock market. Last week was a tough one for equity investors, retail and corporate insiders alike. The past five days were even worse. The S&P 500 closed the week down more than 2%, and has shed just under 3% over the past 14 days. On Wednesday, markets were smacked by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's plans to ease the pace of the central bank's monthly asset purchases. Everyone knew that the Fed would eventually slow down the printing press and that when the process began share prices would immediately drop, the question was when it would happen. Now that it has, investors are left wondering when this psychological sell off will end and prices will stabilize. Here, a sampling of the few insiders who managed to end the week in the black:

Vitamin Cottage Cash

Coloradans Philip Isely and his wife Margaret launched
Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage in 1955 at the base of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado. The couple got their start selling whole grain bread door to door, leveraging nutritional information to make their sales. The fact that whole grain bread is better for you than processed bread that has been bleached likely was not obvious in a time when Wonder Bread ruled the pantry. According to the company, "The Iselys found that the more health and nutrition knowledge their neighbors possessed, the healthier the food they wanted," so Philip and Margaret built their business to educate the consumer and satisfy the resulting demand for "natural and organic" groceries and dietary supplements. Today, Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage has dozens of locations across the western United States, from Oregon to Missouri, and is controlled by a second generation of Iselys. Among them is the founders' son, Zephyr, who got his start with the company back in 1969. Today, he serves as Co-President and owns close to 3.4 million Natural Grocers shares. As shares rose 13% on the week, Isely made $12.7 million on paper. The firm beat Wall Street's quarterly top and bottom line estimates back in May and recently had its price target raised by analysts at SunTrust from $31 to $38.

Cash Injection 2.0

When we last encountered Lawrence J. Lukis nearly a year ago, shares of his
Proto Labs had jumped 13.6% in one week and he held shares in the company worth $209.5 million. Lukis founded Proto Labs in 1999, just months before his first entrepreneurial effort, printer technology company ColorSpan, was acquired by MacDermid in 2000. Proto Labs "manufactures computer numerical control machined and plastic injection molded parts." Basically, they can make any plastic part a client desires. What sets Proto Labs apart is that they specialize in low volume production, and they do it fast, with a turnaround period as short as just 1-3 days. Their process lends itself particularly well to small orders and prototypes, filling "the gap between rapid prototyping and traditional injection molding," according to Lukis. Though Lukis has disposed of approximately 1.8 million Proto Labs shares since last July, he still holds about 5.1 million. After shares advanced 5.5% this week, his stake in the firm is currently worth $307.9 million, a $16.1 million increase over last Friday. Proto Lab shares have risen nearly 80% since Lukis last appeared in this column and well over 100% since the firm's February 2012 IPO.

The Really Rich In Real Time

After two straight days of heavy losses, Friday was relatively flat on Wall Street. While the Dow and the S&P 500 finished in positive territory, the NASDAQ logged a third straight negative performance as tech heavyweight
Oracle Corporation sank like a stone. When the company announced quarterly earnings on Thursday afternoon, sales came in at $10.9 billion, short of the $11.1 billion Wall Street was expecting. Despite doubling the stock's dividend to $.12 per share, Oracle shares tumbled 9.26% in trading on Friday. For Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison, the sell off resulted in a $3.23 billion write down on his fortune. Spanish billionaire and Zara founder Amancio Ortega did his best to compete with the American businessman, but could only muster a $1.22 billion loss on the session. Despite these spectacular 10 figure setbacks, not all of the 50 international billionaires whose wealth Forbes tracks in real time had horrible days. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's holdings in the social networking company climbed 2.64% on Friday, the day after the firm's mobile photo sharing application, Instagram, added video capabilities. Zuckerberg's $294.59 million gain made him Friday's biggest winner in nominal terms.

As a member of the Forbes Wealth team, I've spent countless hours poring over the SEC filings and public records of the billionaires of the Forbes 400. I've valued private companies from gypsum producers to the world's largest restaurant chain and interviewed some of Americ...